The title of this novel is already a declaration of intentions, an intention of its author, the actor Ken Appledorn, marked by the desire to convey the most comical part of an initiatory journey, the one that ended up turning a Detroit neighborhood boy in a devotee of the most traditional Seville.
And it is that clichés, stereotypes and popular customs are a great breeding ground to awaken the hilarity of estrangement. Ken is a Sevillian forged based on topical teachings and adoptions of customs. And he enjoys it very much, that kind of bath of customs that begin by awakening the reader's curiosity, continue to draw the reader's smile and end up awakening the complete laugh.
We certainly like to discover how they see us from the outside. We enrocate even more in our cultural baggage and we dress as a lagarterana if necessary. We are to make nationalism of the details, of the small, of the bizarre, we are a country of contrasts in which we always look for the comic to overcome the tragic.
And without a doubt that attitude has charm for those who visit us from beyond the mountains or the seas. Even more so for an American type, of those of the most American America. Ken is fascinated by our exotic attitude, of a tribe detached from everything, old-fashioned from the past but at the same time respectful of the past and hopeful for the future.
A singular idiosyncrasy that ended up penetrating the actor Ken Applerdon, who ends up offering us this book From Detroit to Triana so that we continue to unleash that laugh of ourselves, facing the mirror of the world, where everyone who dares to look out, ends up hilarious and in turn intoxicated by a lucid laugh, sometimes bitter but always healing.
You can get Ken Appledorn's book, From Detroit to Triana, here: